Sullivan & Cromwell's Garrard Beeney wasn't at all surprised about the antitrust suit filed Friday against his client, the patent licensing company MPEG LA, by a German technology firm called Nero AG. Beeney told us that antitrust allegations are a pretty common tactic in the sort of licensing fee dispute MPEG LA and Nero are involved in. Earlier this year, MPEG sued Nero for breach of contract when it stopped paying to license technology that's part of the MPEG pool. Nero's suit was a standard countermeasure.